Reform the Me-Centered Approach to Divorce

Beverly Willett 6:39 PM

Today, obtaining a divorce couldn’t get much easier. America’s no-fault divorce laws allow spouses to unilaterally walk out on their families for any reason. And many do just that. Spouses who want to keep their families intact, however, have no alternatives. Thus, the outcome of every divorce filing is preordained: the family will split up.

We demand housing, health care and education for our children, but deny them the experience of growing up in one home with both parents.

We all want to be happy. But our current me-centered approach to divorce isn’t working, and children bear the brunt. Every year one million children lose the protection that, experts agree, marriage affords. Evidence shows that children from broken homes are more likely to experience poverty, teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol addiction, depression, reduced educational attainment, decreased longevity and suicidal thoughts. Children are even forced out of their homes every other weekend for our convenience. Consequently, they’ve become leery of marriage, too.

I support a plan that provides hope and an alternative to families contemplating divorce. Under the Parental Divorce Reduction Act, crafted by a team of bipartisan experts, parents with children who are still minors must attend marriage education classes (separately or together), learn about the damaging consequences of divorce, and take an eight-month time-out to reflect on their life-altering decision (and hopefully pursue reconciliation) before they file for divorce. This approach, which targets low-conflict unions, will save marriages. It’s research-based. And the process excludes known impediments to spousal accord: lawyers and judges.

Americans are big on choice and safety, but our current laws offer neither when it comes to victims of divorce. We demand affordable housing, health care and education for our children, but deny them their true heart's desire of growing up in a single household with both parents.

If there’s a sadness greater than stripping children of their rightful childhood, I can’t think of one. I have faith parents can do better. With courage and compassion, we can give our most important commitment the respect it deserves. And in so doing, restore honor to marriage and grant our children their deepest wish.

A Split Makes Certain Situations Safer, Saner

Vicki Larson 6:39 PM

Beverly, your articles have detailed how devastated you were by your unwanted divorce, and how you spent nearly five years fighting your former husband to stop it. I can see that your desire in forming the Parental Divorce Reduction Act, with the goal of helping others avoid “unnecessary” divorce, is genuine. But it’s that word — “unnecessary” — that’s disturbing.

Who decides whether a divorce is “unnecessary”?

Not those in emotionally abusive marriages, because your proposed act doesn’t make exceptions for them. Nor would it be those living with serial adulterers, who may be subject to sexually transmitted diseases, since some research suggests that most people who have affairs don’t practice safe sex. Your act would consider divorce for those reasons “unnecessary.” And that’s wrong.

Before no-fault divorce laws were enacted, many people and their children were stuck in unhealthy, dangerous marriages.

The only people who can decide whether a divorce is necessary or not are the people in the marriage — no one else.

There’s nothing me-centered about no-fault divorce laws; let’s not forget that before the laws were enacted, many people and their children were stuck in unhealthy, dangerous marriages. In fact, a Stanford study details the real and important impact of no-fault divorce — not only are there fewer female suicides now, but there are also fewer men and women living with domestic violence, and fewer women being murdered by their partners. That’s huge.

Your act ignores a fundamental shift in society — single motherhood. Some 40 percent of births today are to women who are unmarried but often cohabiting. Those couples, or fragile families, are poorer and less educated than married couples. Divorce rates have been falling for the past quarter century, especially among college-educated people. Many kids at risk of being stripped of “their rightful childhoods” are those born to unmarried mothers, who tend to form numerous cohabiting partnerships and have less money and resources, not children of divorce. These are the children who demand our help.

No one is promoting divorce. We all realize it can be devastating, not only to children but to the couple, too. That said, most people don’t enter into divorce lightly. Many go to couples or individual therapy, or both, in an attempt to salvage their marriage. We know from recent studies that high-conflict marriages can be more damaging to kids than divorce. We also know that post-divorce parental conflict is extremely harmful to kids, as are custody policies that restrict children’s time with their father. If our goal as a society is to protect children, let’s protect all children, not just those whose parents are considering divorce. Our limited resources and energy would be better spent helping people marry — or partner — smarter, creating policies that support fragile families, and educating divorcing couples about how to co-parent apart in healthy, collaborative ways.

We Can Do Better

Beverly Willett 6:39 PM

Yes, I fought to save my family from divorce. It was the right thing to do, and I’d do it again. All children deserve to grow up with both parents if that’s possible.

Marriage protects men, women and children emotionally, physically and economically. It shouldn't be so easy to discard.

No-fault is an on-demand system with “me” at its core, permitting one “person” to decide for all. Children, divvied up like chattel, get no vote in the dismantling of their families. That sounds harsh, but it’s true. Marriage, on the other hand, protectsmen, women and children emotionally, physically and economically.

Granted every marriage can’t and shouldn’t be salvaged. But too many are needlessly discarded. The Parental Divorce Reduction Act provides exemptions for spouses who are abused or abandoned or married to convicts or addicts. And some research shows that cohabitating unions provide far greater risks of domestic violence. Moreover, while high-conflict marriages can damage children, the act targets low-conflict marriages with good chances for reconciliation. Spouses can divorce under current no-fault laws after the waiting period expires.

Across-the-board, the prognosis for children is dismal, including for children of divorce, many of whom fall into poverty, suffer lower academic achievement, and need and deserve our help, too. Pro-marriage divorce policies and elimination of the marriage tax penalty will also help shore up those "fragile families."

You’ve written that few divorcing couples feel loving and generous enough to work things out. Yet you believe that they can co-parent when they are divorced against their will, in split households, often with blended families, while unable to coexist in one. This strains credulity.

And you want children to have more time with their fathers? Let’s stop making media darlings of privileged women who extol unwed motherhood. Let’s stop claiming fathers are superfluous, glamorizing cohabitation and normalizing infidelity. Let’s put fathers back in their homes with their wives and children.

Family fragmentation costs taxpayers billions every year. The only resource we have in short supply is the courage to do better. Certainly, we should encourage better co-parenting for inevitable divorces. Yes, we need another conversation about marriage other than our failed soul-mate one. We simply can’t have that discussion, however, without acknowledging that marriage matters and addressing what’s wrong with divorce. Otherwise, we leave millions of married couples and their children in the dust.

Good Parenting Should Be the Goal

Vicki Larson 6:39 PM

This isn’t the place to discuss unwed motherhood in the media, but if people look to pop culture for parenting role models, then they most certainly deserve whatever they find there!

Thank you for acknowledging that “every marriage can’t and shouldn’t be salvaged.” You’re right. Unfortunately, the act does nothing to help those couples that will end up divorced. Even if it’s able to stop half of “unnecessary” divorces — and that’s likely generous — that means the other half will divorce with no help on how to co-parent post-divorce. This makes no sense.

We should focus on making people better parents, whether they are married, divorced or single.

People can and do co-parent well after divorce if they put their kids first, not their egos and anger. Parents who act like adults know that while they may not be able to live with their former spouse, that person is still their kids’ dad or mom.

If we make divorce harder, people may game the system just like they did before no-fault laws were enacted. Abuse was so prevalent in New York alone — the last state to enact no-fault — that the state’s bar association, as early as 1945, pushed for reform to eliminate the “widespread fraud, perjury, collusion and connivance" that accompanied divorces.

Who wants to go back to that? Make divorce harder and people may choose to opt out of marriage altogether and cohabit instead, which as I’ve already mentioned is worse for children.

If nothing else, that’s proof that most of us, despite intentions to marry “till death do us part,” want an out.

Salvaging a Marriage Saves Children

Beverly Willett 6:39 PM

True, people want a divorce “out.” The Parental Divorce Reduction Act doesn’t change that. It provides something better -- a fighting chance for marriages that have good prospects of recovery. In sum, Vicki, I think it’s fair to say you oppose any delay or modification in divorce policies whatsoever.

If we stop trying in our marriages, how will our children, as they start relationships, know how to identify with their own potential instead of our failures?

America’s current approach to divorce is mired in a 1970s pessimistic and erroneous assumption that it isn’t possible to save distressed families. Meanwhile, running from our relationship troubles has solved nothing. It’s only made things worse. Marriage is the most important contract in society, but the least protected and respected. When our laws once again value marriage, more people will marry, fewer will divorce and children’s lives will improve.

The short shrift we’ve given marriage has harmed parents, children and communities, causing a host of undeniable problems that society – and you in this debate – have largely ignored, including serious health and emotional fallout to spouses and children; decreased standard of living for families, with many impoverished; and significant retreat from marriage altogether by the middle class. It’s raised the odds of premature mortality for children by five years, too, notwithstanding that a minority can develop some resiliency. By contrast, marriage is a wealth and health building institution, which provides the best stability for men, women and children.

Agreed, there have been fundamental shifts in society. We divorce more, marry less and are increasingly dissatisfied. That’s not progress. Covenant marriage, while a noble endeavor, hasn’t worked. It’s an option in only a handful of states where few couples even know the choice exists. Those who do are steered to traditional marriage counseling, which often fails. Acrimony, too, still pervades our divorce process.

Fear that cohabitation will rise if we do the right thing for our children by enacting divorce reform ignores the correlation between the devaluation of the institution of marriage, on the one hand, and skyrocketing cohabitation, unwed childbearing and divorce, on the other. Perpetuating the status quo won’t improve these odds. Admitting we were wrong will. Not wrong about each other, but about our capacity to envision a loving future with the family we’ve already been blessed with, provided we’re willing to put in the requisite hard work, patience and forgiveness.

Without legal and cultural divorce reform, we’ll merely continue breeding the same self-fulfilling prophecy of failure we have now. How we feel in our relationships today, however, need not be how we feel tomorrow. And those who choose to put in the effort of preserving their families? I think they'll be pleasantly surprised at the outcome.

Those parents who you believe are better served by co-parenting instruction (inherently part of the communication skills training outlined in the act, by the way) made public vows to love and choose one another in good times and in bad, and became responsible for other lives. Many are weighed down by the stresses of 21st century life that does little to support families. The act will help them because when “egos and anger” flare, putting children first requires turning over every last stone, not walking away. Otherwise, when it comes to their own relationships, how will our children ever know how to identify with their potential instead of our failures?

My heart breaks every time I hear about another family splitting. Sometimes I read about it in the news; sometimes it greets me in my inbox. And there I sit, with families suffering all around me, trying to save other people’s marriages when I couldn’t even save my own.

Still, I believe we’re capable of restoring faith in marriage and doing what’s best for our children. I worry that if we don’t, our unrestrained divorce culture will continue producing fatherless homes, families that struggle to make ends meet and rootless, joyless latchkey kids living out of suitcases.

Americans love the message of hope and change. The Parental Divorce Reduction Act provides that hope to America’s families. It restores dignity to the institution of marriage, and will bring honor to the legacy we leave our children. Passage is worth it even if it saves only one family. Forty-two years of failed divorce policies is enough.

Trapped Parents Aren’t Happy Parents

Vicki Larson 6:39 PM

You’re partly right, Beverly. I actually do want to change the way we divorce, just not in the way you’re proposing.

If we truly care about kids’ well-being, we need to get divorcing couples out of litigation and into mediation or collaborative law, which has seen great success in Australia, England, British Columbia and elsewhere. As one family law attorney accurately observes, “No one can expect a couple to effectively parent after being exposed to the court process.”

We don’t do our children any favors by being martyrs and staying in dysfunctional, toxic marriages.

And that’s what it is ultimately about — parenting our kids in the best possible way, whether we're married, divorced, cohabiting or single. It’s great that your act requires marriage education, but its emphasis — and scare tactics about the impacts of divorce on kids — is misguided. What struggling parents need is support. And for those parents who do divorce, there’s nothing in your program that directly addresses the unique situation of co-parenting once spouses are apart. Generically boosting “communication skills” just won’t cut it.

We know the real problem for kids is parental conflict, which leads to behavioral and emotional problems. So is separation from their father, as too many kids have sadly had to endure — the fatherless homes you mention have often been court-mandated because of decades of unfair custody laws. Just like we need to make mediation, not litigation, the default, we need to push for more shared parenting (provided it’s a safe situation, of course). Although we may not want to live with our former spouse anymore, kids want to live with both of their parents.

We don’t do our children any favors by being martyrs and staying in dysfunctional, toxic marriages for their sake. Kids see right through that. Although some of us never fight in front of them, they are all-too-aware of what’s going on because divorce doesn’t happen overnight; it’s a long, tense process. For that matter, so is a bad marriage.

Even the now-defunct Smart Marriages Coalition was against government intervention in divorce, fearing that it could “increase resentment and the sense of being trapped” and might “keep some marriages together” that are “hugely destructive for adults and children.” Trapped parents aren’t happy parents, and unhappy parents don’t create an environment for happy, healthy kids.

Fear is a horrible reason to stay in an unhealthy marriage. Your act is dismissive of the pain-staking efforts many couples endure to make their marriage work. Insisting that they “try harder” is judgmental and borders on cruelty. Forcing couples to wait in hopes of reconciliation may actually increase conflict and even domestic abuse. And while marriage may offer some health benefits, studies show that those in stressful marriages appear to be more susceptible to illness and at greater risk for cardiovascular disease.

The Parental Divorce Reduction Act is like telling a severely ill patient who shows up at the E.R. that she can’t get help until she learns how to better manage her diabetes and hypertension. Why not encourage couples to marry more consciously and give them tools to build enduring, successful marriages from the beginning? And if we truly want to support children, why not create policies that make life easier for families of all sorts — not just middle-class nuclear families?

I can understand why your heart breaks whenever you hear of another split; divorce isn’t easy. Yet many parents and their kids go on to live healthier, more fulfilling lives after a divorce. Marriage isn’t always the answer and divorce isn’t always the problem. I’ve stopped saying, “I’m sorry” when someone tells me he or she is divorcing because too often the response has been, “No, it’s a good thing.”

We can’t possibly know when a divorce is “unnecessary”; only the individuals within a marriage know this. And they must have the freedom to make this difficult decision on their own.